The Ghost in the Game
by Emmylou
Summary: Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, and some mysterious hauntings?
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre: **Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings: **Implied minor character incest. Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships: **Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** The game is about to start and Moriarty has all but one piece in place, Molly's only chance of survival is keeping Moriarty amused, and Sherlock and John are being haunted… by their Victorian selves.

**A/N: **The only way I can describe this is as an AU that sticks like glue to canon. In fact, every canon event happens as the show describes. This fic is more like a glimpse at what could be going on behind the scenes…

The fic is complete (seven chapters and an epilogue) and has been beta-ed by the lovely lemonflav_lopfe . All errors are mine and mine alone.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

It's morning. Molly sits up in her single bed, which is jammed against the ice-cold window. The springs squeal underneath her.

The shower is low-pressured and lukewarm. She follows a quick, mechanical routine because others are waiting to use it and she doesn't want to have another confrontation with an aggressive Polish builder about using up the hot water.

She rushes down the stairs and out of the front door, eager to be out of the musty bedsit and in the cold, sharp air of London. As she slams the front door the tarnished number 27 on it wobbles slightly.

An elderly woman, Miss. Keening, peers out of a grimy window from the floor above. She turns back to her mother's bed and says; "It's only Molly going to work, Mother."

The house was once a Victorian terraced house, but an over-enthusiastic estate agent might call it 'new semi-detached' due to the house next to it being levelled, leaving just a gated-off mound of rubble to mark its existence. The other side of the house is attached to a pub, closed sometime around the World Cup in 1998. Molly walks past the boarded up windows towards her bus stop.

In every direction there are cranes and the crashing of building work. London is papering over its dingiest areas in preparation for the glorious Olympics. 27 will meet its neighbour's fate as soon as Boris Johnson and his council cronies can figure out how to remove ninety-seven year old Mrs. Keening, who was born in the house and fully intends (with no small amount of satisfaction) to die there. The place has been a bedsit since the sixties, and Miss. Keening rents out rooms for cash in hand.

Molly Hooper has lived there four months. Anything she doesn't want to permanently lose is taken with her on the bus to work – her laptop, the jewellery she hasn't sold, and her Elizabeth Arden lipstick.

The work is easy and completely pointless on the days that Sherlock Holmes doesn't arrive at the laboratory. When the day is over a bus drops her off outside her nearest library.

She stays there, eyes straining as she stares endlessly at her laptop screen, until the librarian begins switching off lights in the hope Molly will take the hint. Once the library closes she can't do any more research; Miss. Keening thinks Wi-Fi is a kind of stereo.

She buys some soup on the way home, or a frozen meal. The high-point of the evening is microwaving it before bed.

The bed squeaks. She wakes up. She goes back to sleep. A train screams past. She gets up.

The day begins again.

* * *

From: Molly Hooper

To: Jim Moriarty

Hi Jim,

The color on my computer screen keeps going all wibbly and then it just crashes. Clare said you were the person to talk to about it since you saved her ancient PC. No rush, it's just making my work a bit slow is all lol. Any chance you can fix it for me?

Dr. Molly Hooper

_Morgue Technician_

_Ext: 5581_

_

* * *

_

The time of day Molly hated most was ten o' clock. She had vacated the library, stopped at the Co-op, and was on her way home to her empty bedsit. This was not a good place to walk alone after dark, and she guarded her laptop bag jealously.

It seemed beyond belief that a year ago her only concern in the evening had been which Jimmy Choos to wear with her little black dress. Now she was dressed like her great aunt and tramping home to microwave soup in a pair of £4.99 ballerina pumps from DiscountShoeZone.

She slammed the front door behind her, dog-tired and grateful not to have been mugged. She staggered up tackily carpeted stairs. Her keys clinked as she accidentally dropped them. She stooped to get them, jammed the right one in the door, and irritably twisted it.

It remained locked.

She stared at it for a moment and tried to stretch her mind back to this morning. Had she left it unlocked? She couldn't imagine leaving it unlocked. She didn't leave it unlocked when she was inside, let alone outside.

She turned the key again. The door swung inwards and she peered inside. The place was empty.

Molly sighed and, berating herself for her own stupidity, walked over to her beside lamp. She couldn't reach the overhead light to change the bulb so it was the only source of light. She fumbled for the switch, and with a moment of relief that she had escaped electrocution for another day, she turned around to survey her lodgings for signs of theft.

She screamed.

"I wouldn't bother if I were you," said the man at her table. "The old crone is asleep thanks to her sleepy pills. The daughter is at bingo. The goth couple are too high to care. And the Polish guy is out drinking his wages. It's just you and me." He said it as though they were two naughty teenagers sneaking away for an illicit grope.

It wasn't possible! Even in the dark, she'd have noticed someone sitting at the small table…

"I wasn't even hiding," he smirked. "People just don't look properly."

He was a young man with a pointy face and black beetle eyes. His mouth had quirk of a boy who has spent his day setting fire to ants. His suit… it made her think longingly of the old days. It was expensive. Well made. It made her think of Sherlock.

She swallowed. Best not go there.

"Don't you recognise me?" he asked. His voice was high and mock-offended. "You sent me a looovely email last week. And it's a pity you did, because if it wasn't for that I would never have noticed you. I certainly wouldn't have guessed your little secret."

He flipped through a file on his desk and thrust a piece of paper at her. It was the email she'd sent to Jim Moriarty in IT.

"You've broken into my home because you didn't like an IT request I sent you?" Now she thought about it, she had seen him before - dressed casually in low hanging jeans and a tight tee. He had climbed under her desk and mucked around with her computer for a bit before declaring it fixed. "The computer's fine now."

"First mistake," the man – Moriarty – snapped. "Americanisms. 'Is all'… do people really say that outside of Glee? Color without a 'u'. And no English person of your age would be able to type the words 'Dear Jim, can you fix it for me?' without making a very trite joke or at_ least_ a smilie face. I hacked into your computer, sorted out the virus, and had a good look around while I was there."

He waved a few more files at her. Molly felt her trembling knees give out and she dropped onto the bed heavily.

"Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. _Sherlock Holmes_. Monographs, articles, history, media articles…and all this on your work computer alone. I wormed my way into your private email accounts and lo and behold, there he is _again_. It's like you're trying to pick his life apart. Emails to people he was at uni with asking for information, emails to various reporters who have dealt with him. Very thorough. Such a pity you've found no evidence to back your theory up at all."

"_He's_ my evidence," snarled Molly.

Moriarty slammed the file onto the desk. "Oh c'mon MOLLY. Drop the act. Once I'd seen your computer I only needed to come down to the lab and fanny around with your computer as an excuse to see your face. You may have dyed your hair brown and given yourself a serious make-under but you can't fool me."

"If you're so clever," Molly trembled. "You tell me who I am."

Moriarty laughed, it was genuine and yet slightly hysterical. "Oh yes. I'm good at that. Well then. Where shall I start? Dr. Meredith Sholes born Meredith Harper in New '_Yoik_' 1979. Senator father. Obstetrician mother. Studied medicine and then journalism. Met your future husband, controversial physicist Dr. Hedley Sholes at College and made a name for yourself by exposing medical malpractice, forcing the US to reconsider medical policy. The Lancet soon came knocking on your door and you worked in London for three years – no doubt perfecting that credible English accent. Dr. Sholes soon realised that his career would be improved by a marriage – unfortunate for him as he's as gay as a Christmas tree. You were married three years before it all went to hell. He applied for divorce. And then – _gasp_ – Dr. Sholes disappeared without a trace. His lovely wife Meredith disappeared three months later under a cloud of suspicion."

Molly – Meredith – shrugged. She tried to look like she didn't care. "I've not done anything illegal."

Jim gave that creepy laugh again and then spoke in an accusatory staccato. "Doctor goes missing after applying for a divorce from his ambitious wife who wouldn't like the way a gay husband would reflect on her career. She goes missing soon after the investigation starts and is found to be hiding in a bedsit using fake documents to work in a morgue. Sounds illegal to me."

"My husband is still alive!" Meredith leapt to her feet. "I've been trying to figure out what the _hell _is happening."

Jim pulled an 'awww' face. "And you think that by rescuing him from the 'ebul' James Moriarty you'll earn his undying love and he'll learn to like vagina?"

"I don't care whether he loves me or not. I just want him back one piece," a tear rolled down her face and she cursed herself. She'd told herself over and over that this was about clearing her name, not about saving Hedley… but it was hard to believe that when she _did_ love him.

He stood delicately and closed the file. He dropped it into the bin as though it no longer mattered and pulled out a mobile phone.

"Sorry love, your husband is dead. I ensured it." He held up a hand to stop her talking. "If you've convinced yourself otherwise then you really don't understand the operation I'm running here – though you've got a damn sight closer than anyone else ever has."

Meredith set her face grimly. She was all too aware that she had no weapons, nothing to defend herself with, and that this man may look feeble but he still towered over her. "So what are you going to do to me then? Kill me?"

Moriarty smiled. "Oh yeah. But first I'm going to squeeze that last bits of usefulness out of your brain. And then when there's nothing useful left in that, I'll use your body up too."

He saw the flinch.

"Oh I'm not going to rape you . I can think of much more interesting things to do with bodies than waste semen on them."

* * *

**A/N:**_ Please _let me know what you think. I'm still a bit nervous about posting it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre: **Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings: **Implied minor character incest. Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships:** Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** The game is about to start and Moriarty has all but one piece in place, Molly's only chance of survival is keeping Moriarty amused, and Sherlock and John are being haunted… by their Victorian selves.

**A/N:** Thank you for the encouraging reviews. I'm posting this next chapter a little earlier than planned for you as a thanks.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

John would – grudgingly - admit that he enjoyed a healthy level of excitement in his life. Perhaps a little more than healthy; if pushed. But he did appreciate moments of calm too, and the most reliable of those was the twenty minutes Sherlock spent shaving.

It was a guaranteed twenty minutes of peace in which John could read the newspaper articles that Sherlock would normally judge him for reading, and if he laughed at the Andy Capp strip nothing would be read into his sexuality, his upbringing, or his social background from it.

He had just fished yesterday's paper out of the recycling and headed over to his chair when he saw what had been done to the wall.

"SHERLOCK!" he yelled furiously.

There was a crash from the bathroom. In seconds his shirtless flatmate appeared wielding a machete - one side of his face was still covered in shaving foam.

"What?"

Sherlock looked around, apparently disappointed that life and limb did not appear to be in danger.

John pointed at the wall. "Explain that."

Sherlock looked at the wall, then back to John. "It appears to be a wall. Is that all? Really John, I respect the bathroom boundaries you were so keen on going on about, you should do the same for me."

John bit back a sarcastic laugh and refrained from pointing out that most people didn't need to have those sort of boundaries explained.

"You've shot at it! Mrs. Hudson will go spare!"

Sherlock looked at the wall again. "No I haven't."

John turned to point furiously. "Yes you-!"

The wall was spotless. More accurately, it was bullet-hole free.

"I swear," John snapped, "there were bullet-holes in the wall! They spelt out 'VR'."

This was the ciphers all over again. Sherlock seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Did you get a picture?"

"There wasn't time! I only looked away for a second. And like I said, it spelt out 'VR'. Any ideas?"

Sherlock frowned. "I would never shoot that wall," he shrugged. He jerked his thumb over at the wall above the couch. "That one is far more structurally sound."

He turned and left – swinging his machete rather disappointedly – leaving John staring at the wall.

Of course, it quickly turned into one of those odd moments that soon get rationalised away. He'd had a bad night. Those prawns he'd ate hadn't sat well. His subconscious was messing with him… a few weeks later he barely remembered it.

Though when Sherlock did shoot a smilie face into the wall John had to take some of the blame for giving him the idea.

* * *

Moriarty was picking through the thin plastic bag she had dropped. He examined her chicken soup as though he had no idea what food was meant for, and she winced inwardly as he stood tossing her packet of tampons from hand to hand like a perverse juggler.

He was blocking her path to the door. Molly (it was impossible to think of herself as Meredith in grim world) sat perched on the bed ready to spring up at a chance for escape.

"Did you ever play with dolls when you were little?" he asked conversationally. "Barbies? Sindy – do you get them over there? Maybe those funny little Sylvanian animal families?"

"Sometimes," she shrugged.

"And did you ever spend so long setting up your little scene and all the outfits that by the time you were ready to start playing your _mommy_ made you stop?"

"I guess so."

"You _guess so_. Well I _have_."

"That explains a lot. Were you a big Barbie fan?"

He grinned, still tossing the box of tampons from one hand to the other.

Before she even saw what was coming he sprung forward and struck her so hard that she was thrown backwards onto the bed. She shrieked and tried to get up, but before she could recover he was already back in his former position, tossing the box as though he'd done nothing.

She scrabbled back to a sitting position as he continued.

"Imagine the whole world is a game. I can make anyone do anything I want. Now I've been setting up one particular game for a looong time. Years and years and years. And now I have all the dolls and all the outfits and I finally have found the exact accessories I need. I'm finally ready to play."

Molly could say nothing. Her face was stinging and there were only sarcastic comments in her mind.

"See I could play it like a computer program. I could push the buttons and make them say and do what I want. Or I could join in and have a go at moving them around myself. It's less safe, but I'm just wacky like that."

"How does this involve me?" she asked.

"Well you see, annoying as it is, you are part of the game now. And you can give me access to the people I actually care about playing with."

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Bingo."

She swallowed.

"Why should I? I mean, if what you say is true… if my husband is dead… why should I let you hurt anyone else? I don't care what you do to me. Have me arrested for murder. Or kill me and chop my body up into little pieces…" Her voice wobbled, but her eyes met his without backing down.

"You really have no imagination, do you? And you still don't get it. If you refuse, I've lost nothing. This way is just more fun for me. Once my fun is over, you die just like your precious husband. Your only chance of survival is to keep me interested."

"Kill me then."

Moriarty laughed again. "You don't get to choose."

He bounced over to the microwave and began poking around her bowls and cups. He chattered away as he poured the soup into a bowl.

"I had a brand new gadget sent to me this morning," he chirped. "All the way from locker 413, Chicago Airport."

He reached into his jacket pocket and held up a mobile phone.

"That's mine!"

"I know!"

He ripped open the box of tampons and began dropping them into the soup. He looked as engrossed as a boy might playing in a sandpit. Then he shoved the bowl into the microwave, spun the dial, and set it cooking.

"Now I love a new mobile. Sorry. _Cell_. So much fun! I wonder what apps it's got? Has it got that one for playing air guitar? Oh but look-" he tapped the screen "- here's a brand new app designed by me."

He held the screen up in front of her face.

"It's my…my contact list."

"Yes it is. How many contacts have you got? Two hundred and twenty one." He scrolled through. "Let's pick one at random. Hannah Wade. Who's she?"

"She used to be my PA." Her voice sounded weak even to herself.

"Like her?"

Molly gave a non-committal shrug.

"I've programmed this phone so that when a contact is deleted from it, that person's name, address, and number is sent to one of my own network of hit-men. In short, if I delete Hannah Wade from the list I delete _Hannah Wade_. Shall we see if it works?"

He raised his finger.

Molly forced herself not to reply. She just knew that if she did he'd gleefully bring his finger down on the delete option.

"No? Don't care about poor old Hannah then?"

No reply.

"We're clearly better off without her then."

Moriarty pressed delete.

"No!" Molly leapt for the phone but he pushed her back onto the bed hard enough to make the room spin.

"I wasn't bluffing. Next time it won't be some stupid PA, it'll be your mommy or your sister or maybe I'll go crazy and delete the whole contact list. From now on you do everything I tell you to, got it?"

He grabbed her collar and pulled her close to his face. "Got. It?"

Molly nodded.

"Good. Cause we're going to have a little fun with Molly Hooper's fake life. She needs a fake boyfriend. And a fake blog. Are you a fake cat person?"

Thirty seconds later he was gone, leaving behind no explanation to what he had planned, beyond telling her he'd be in touch soon.

A minute later her microwave burst into flames.

* * *

**A/N:** Hopefully this isn't too strange for you. I promise every single question you might have will be answered in the coming chapters. More will be up shortly, but please soothe my insecurities by telling me what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **The Ghost in the Game

**Author: **EmmyAngua

**Rating: **15

**Genre: **Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied minor character incest. Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships: **Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

**A/N:** I've changed the summary a bit , because I thought it was a little weak. I'm getting a bit worried no one is reading! If you are, um, please let me know!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Molly sat at her desk and stared blankly at her computer screen. She had preferred it when the colour was all wibbly.

Her gaudy new blog was open on the browser and she was tiptoeing through it cautiously. She had no posting access to it, though she had tried to guess the passwords without success. She imagined Jim (as she was supposed to call him now) sitting upstairs taking helpdesk calls while he invented Molly Hooper's life.

Helplessness didn't even cover it.

Over the last few weeks she'd watched as Molly Hooper gained a cat and asked reality show hosts about lipstick. Now she was apparently watching Glee cuddled up to the man who had killed her husband and her former PA.

And he _had _killed her PA. While she had no real proof that her husband was alive or dead in any real sense, she'd already seen the cutting from the NY Times Jim had so kindly had sent to her. Hannah Wade had been raped and strangled in her own high security apartment block. There police had no leads. She found herself stroking the face pictured in the paper. The African-American girl looking back at her was cuddled into the neck of her boyfriend and looked carefree and happy.

"Molly?"

She jumped and managed to remember her dowdy English expression and wilting voice before she snapped 'What?' in her strongest New York twang.

"Yes Kev?"

Kev sighed. "Sherlock's here. He's asking about fingernails. He's all yours."

Molly nodded and sighed. It was time to put on her Glee-watching, cat-loving, psychopath-dating mask again.

* * *

Sherlock was stretched out on the sofa eating an entire packet of biscuits for no other reason than it annoyed John when he did. John was being completely unreasonable, insisting on going to this stupid job every day when they had much better things to be doing.

"Sherlock?" There was a light tap on the door.

"Not now Mrs. Hudson! I'm eating! You know how much you approve of me eating things."

"There's a telegram for you Sherlock."

"Not n-"

Sherlock froze. Telegram? Now that was interesting! He leapt to his feet showing the carpet with crumbs and threw the door open.

Mrs. Hudson was gone.

Sherlock frowned. He had moved far too quickly for her to have got downstairs. The logical conclusion was that she hadn't been up here.

Deciding that it was just, just possible he had mistaken her for being upstairs when she had actually called from downstairs he bounced down the steps with his dressing gown billowing out behind him. He rounded the corner and rapped on the door.

"Mrs. Hudson?"

The frosted glass door opened a crack and she peeked out at him.

"If this is about the fingernails-" she began dangerously.

At the same time Sherlock demanded; "Where is it?"

"What?"

"The telegram."

"I'm not quite old enough to be getting one of them Sherlock," she scoffed.

"You just called upstairs and said there was a telegram for me."

Mrs. Hudson blinked. "I didn't. I've been watching Countdown. Perhaps you were dreaming."

Sherlock looked at her guileless face, and unlike many guileless faces he'd seen in his time, he judged it be actually free from guile.

She reached out and began brushing biscuit crumbs from his top with a tut at the state of him.

"My mistake," he said with a friendly smile. "Go back to your dreary programme."

* * *

Molly (she was growing attached to the name now) was back in her office. She was slumped in her chair, staring at her blank computer screen without seeing anything. Never in her whole life had she wanted to hide from the world like she did now.

She briefly entertained the idea of shoving the filing cabinet in front of the door and huddling in a corner until she died from starvation. It was probably against hospital policy.

She had done her part. He'd made her go over and over what she was supposed to say, and do, and act. She was supposed to be the dumb, blind girlfriend.

He'd thought it hilarious pretending to be gay.

"You seem to attract the gays, don't you?" he smirked.

She'd introduced _Jim_ to Sherlock Holmes. She'd thrown a tantrum. She'd left. She was waiting for him in her office as instructed.

Moriarty (she wasn't ever calling him Jim again) meandered in ten minutes later eating a Mars Bar and playing a racing game on her cell phone one-handed.

"Have you ever considered a career in acting?" he purred. "You – Mollidith – were perfect. You've earned a reward." He scrolled through the phone. "Any ex-boyfriends you'd like wiped out of the gene pool?"

He frowned at her expressionless face as she stared blankly up from her chair and pinched her cheek. "Cheer up babes. You were good. I mean it about the reward."

Moriarty grabbed her hair and seized a scalding kiss from her. His hands roamed freely over her still, emotionless body. He tasted like the Mars Bar.

"There," he said – grinning down at her as though she were in a swoon of passion, "I take it back about attracting the gays. There's plenty of straight guys who'd take a pop at you. Not that I'm straight. Not that I'm anything really."

"Have I outlived my interest then?" asked Molly, toneless.

"Nice try Mollidith," he grinned. "But you have one final pleasure left for me. I want to see your face when you realise exactly what I've done to your precious husband. And I want to see what happens when you work out what's going to happen to you."

He took a final bite of the Mars Bar.

"But first I've got some playing to do with Sherlock and his puppy. So I'll have to put you back in the toy box for a while." He grinned. "Don't worry though, I know some lovely men who'll look after you. I'll have you picked up tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: **The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre: **Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied minor character incest. Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships: **Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary: **Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

**A/N: **This is a longer chapter for you. Thanks for all the comments! Hope it lives up to your expectations.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Molly knew that she should have run. Even if Moriarty tracked her down in minutes, she would have at least been caught on her own terms. But she'd spent too long living in a helpless stupor under his power. He just had to touch a mobile phone button to wipe out her everyone she knew.

So she went home. She got up in the morning. She spent slightly longer in the shower than usual and told the Polish builder to go fuck himself when he got up in her face about it.

The door slammed behind her. The 27 wobbled. She neared the bus stop.

The goons attacked.

Molly surprised herself. When they tried to bundle her into a van, she finally came back to life. If they took her, she'd have no chance of survival. And she wanted to live, only now did she realise how much.

She scratched, and clawed, and screamed and tried to raise help in the middle of bleakest part of London. A train rumbled past. Horns could be heard in the distance. No one saw her and no one came to help.

The van she was bundled into was black and the air was so stuffy and hot that it burned her lungs. For a minute or two she had visions of being gassed to death, but as the van rumbled on nothing happened other than the cut on her cheek weeping down her face. She was tossed about as the van swept around roundabouts.

In desperation she began to count to seconds to figure out how long the journey was taking. After two hours, she was too bored to carry on.

They stopped for about ten minutes as what she guessed was a petrol station, but no one opened the door. Occasionally she heard a distant voice as if someone was walking past the van. She screamed. No one responded.

When the van finally switched off the engine again, Molly was nearly asleep. She'd thought, at first, that she'd be alert for the whole journey. But it'd been hours and hours of nothing and it was exhausting.

The men yanked her out into the weak light of the afternoon. Her first response was to shriek, to try and break free, but the men were strong and one clamped a hand over her mouth.

"You can scream all fucking day if you want," he snapped, "but there ain't anyone within ten miles who'll come and help you. Now move."

He removed the hand and shoved her towards a stone building in front of them. They were in a courtyard of an old building… not just any building, one that brought Jane Austen novels to mind. There were windows everywhere she looked. Birds chirruped. A whole forest of tree branches could be heard rustling in the wind.

"Welcome to the Estate," snorted another of her captors. "Pretty ain't it? Don't think you'll be living in the lap of luxury though."

The first held her fast as the second unlocked a metal door. She was so weak that the first was practically holding her up, and when the door was fully open the smell sent her reeling backwards into his chest.

"They're fucking animals," spat the second as he gagged.

That was all they had to say on the matter. Between them they gave her an almighty shove through the door and slammed it after her.

* * *

It took Molly what felt like hours to find the steps up to the first floor. She seemed to be in what was, once upon a time, the pantry and kitchens of an old, grand house. But there were no lights and the windows had been boarded up. She had to tiptoe forward inch by inch; half terrified of tripping over a dead body (admittedly, she'd be more able to handle it than most, but even in her job the idea wasn't a pleasant one.)

She fell up the first step and bashed her shin, but she was so grateful to find a way up into the light that she didn't care about jolt to her leg.

And it was bright, so much that it hurt her eyes. Sun streamed in through the windows and she stumbled through the rooms trying to figure them out. She eventually reached a grand entrance hall with a sweeping staircase and though she struggled with the door it was locked and barred.

The floors were filthy, covered with dead rodents and insects. Cobwebs had obscured the higher levels of moulded plaster. Miss. Havisham would have been right at home.

The windows could no more offer the comfort of fresh air than they could offer escape. A layer of plastic glass was bolted over the inside of the windows, meaning that she could neither open nor smash them. She went from window to window in the hope of seeing someone outside to call for help, but they only offered views of a deserted country estate.

Not a living person for miles, she realised.

As if the house had heard her thoughts there was an almighty scream from somewhere above her. It was male, and as she scampered towards the staircase she realised that it wasn't a scream of pain…not physical torture or injury…it was a scream of mental anguish. The scream of the madhouse.

"I wouldn't go up there if I were you," rasped a voice.

Molly – her foot still on the first step – shrieked and staggered backwards. The voice had come from her left. There! In a corner she had assumed to be filled with lifeless rags there was an old man. He was huddled on the floor and Molly wondered how she had not seen him at once.

"Someone needs help," was all she managed to say.

"You can't help him," shrugged the man. "He's locked up in one of the rooms."

"I could talk to him," she swallowed. "Let him know that _someone_ is trying to help him."

"If you could help him you wouldn't be a prisoner like we are."

Molly crept forward to get a better look at the man. He was old, anywhere between sixty and ninety. She guessed that living here probably aged one. His cheeks were hollow and grey, which made his hooked nose look even sharper than it was. His grey beard looked like it had dried up years before. A firm brow hung heavily over filmy grey eyes. He was blind.

"What's your name?" she asked. "I'm… I'm Molly."

"Don't have a name," he wheezed. "He calls us by our number. I'm Two. He-" Two jerked his head up towards the screaming, "-is Five."

"What about One, Three, and Four?" Molly asked. Her eyes darted around as if expecting more men to creep from the shadows.

"Four is dead. Years ago. Got sick. Three dead too."

"He got sick?"

Two shook his head jerkily. "_One_ killed him. He's no more than an animal." He smiled, as if he could see the terror on her face. "Don't worry. I'll show you how to deal with him before he does you any damage."

"You said 'he calls you by number'," said Molly. "Who does?"

The man snorted. "If you hadn't crossed his path already you wouldn't be here now."

"Moriarty?"

As he talked Two struggled slowly to his feet. He batted her away when she tried to help. "James Moriarty. Only two of them left now, brother and sister. When I was a young man there was a whole family of the bastards. They're always called James. 'Cept the girls. I don't think they bother giving girls names."

He was standing now and limping towards the stairs. It seemed each leg had a different injury, so it looked like each one was trying to out-limp the other.

"I've heard a voice like yours before," he said thoughtfully. They were about halfway up the stairs now and he had given in and allowed her to support him. "A man. He was a prisoner for a while too."

"He was American? Did he tell you his name?"

"Mmm…it was…Hedley."

Molly stilled. "What happened to him?" She knows what happened, of course, she just doesn't know how. Or why.

"They took him downstairs. They have a…lab down there. After that who knows what happened. It was the same for all of them." He took another achingly slow step up.

"There were others?"

"Oh yes. There were two men after the one who sounded like you. They were only here for a few days before they were taken downstairs. There was a woman too – old, scared - she wasn't here long either."

They reached the top at last. She had many so many questions.

For the first time in a very long time, she felt like Meredith again. This man was a real connection to her husband. Proof that he was taken and proof that, whatever happened afterwards, he was alive in this building for a while.

"Did he… did Hedley ever mention his wife?" The question bubbled up before she could stop it.

"No. He never talked about any wife."

Molly lowered her head and breathed out. "Yeah. That sounds like him."

* * *

He shuffled along the corridors until he reached the door that housed Five. The door was made of steel, and yet the screams were loud enough to make her wince.

There was no lock or any indication of how the door opened, beyond a small metal flap that she guessed was for food to be shoved through. It opened outwards, and when she tested it she realised it was built like a sanitary towel bin – there was no way to see in or out of the room through it.

"Who is he?"

Two shrugged. "He's just like me. A lab rat."

She bit her lip. "Don't you try and talk to him… soothe him?"

Two shrugged again. "All that would achieve would be to keep him sane for longer. Give him hope. Me and him. We're the same. If I was in there like he is… well I'd want to sink into madness quick and get it over with."

"Is he? Insane?"

"He's been in there for sixty years. No windows. No sounds. Nothing but a hole for waste, a dripping tap for water, and food shoved in every two days. I hope to god he is insane, girl, at least you can't get bored with hallucinations."

He set off in his shuffle again. It was strange – like her presence was slowly waking him up.

"Come out!" he yelled, as he walked. "Come here!"

She could only guess that he was calling to the other prisoner. One.

At length, she heard the sound of shuffling footsteps and a figure appeared in the distance corridor. He was an ancient man, like Two, only he was practically bent double and he dragged one of his legs after him. As he got close she saw that his face was a mass of scars – like he had scratched at his skin over and over.

"Didn't you say he was a killer?" she whispered as he hobbled closer.

"What? Oh he is. Not his fault. Brain surgery turned him into little more than an animal. He listens to me though, when he can be made to understand."

One stopped in front of Two. He was so bent over that it looked almost like he was bowing to him, but when Molly saw his eyes she saw the look of the caged animal in them.

That wasn't what captured her attention though. What she stared at was his nose. It was identical to the other man's. And – now she looked for it – she could see the same basic resemblance.

"This girl," intoned Two, "is not to be hurt. Do you understand?"

The eyes swivelled to look into her face and up and down her body.

"Do you understand?"

One grunted.

"You are not to play with her. Do you understand? No playing."

One grunted.

"Good. As you were."

One hobbled off again with a resentful look back at them.

"He'll forget in a day or two," murmured Two. "Best to avoid him. Barricade your bedroom door at night as well. If all else fails you're young. You can outrun him."

* * *

Three months have passed. Molly is in hell. Her life bears so little resemblance to the life she lived as Meredith, and even the comparative luxury of Molly's existence, that she toys with picking a new name. Mildred, maybe, that's the sort of depressing name for a place like this.

Her bedroom was, once upon a time, the Lady's bedroom. It probably hasn't seen use since 1900 and the bed is crawling with spiders and cockroaches. Instead she sleeps on a mouldy armchair which hurts her neck. She has ripped down the curtains in her room and wraps them around herself for warmth. There is no power, which means no light or heat. She wakes up when it gets light at four or five, and goes to sleep when it gets dark.

There are bathrooms, but the pipes don't work. If she wants water she must walk down to the empty kitchen and use the single working tap. There are no cups, plates, and certainly nothing as weapon-like as a knife. She has to drink water cupped in her own grimy palms and no matter how hard she turns the tap she is never rewarded with more than a trickle.

There is a single toilet, which she shares with One and Two (the irony of the names has not escaped her, as there is a liberal amount of number ones and twos all over the bathroom). She doesn't think the toilet has been clean as long as the prisoners have been alive. She hovers over it rather than sits.

At first she dreaded the idea of being starved as there is not a morsel of food anywhere in the house. Two reassured her that they would be fed every two days, and he is right. The food – overripe fruit and three loaves of bread is pushed through a flap in the door like feeding time at the zoo.

She and Two gather up a share of the food and leave the rest for One to find. They push some of it through the flap in the door to Five's prison, and when they close the flap it drops onto the floor inside. Five doesn't notice it for a couple of hours, which is the only time he stops screaming other than when he's unconscious.

Her days are spent sitting on the floor next to Two. They talk. He tells her his story – that he woke up in the laboratory downstairs when he was sixteen with no memory of his life before that. They performed experiments on him for months and months. Maybe even years. And when he stopped being useful, they left him and his 'brothers' to rot. Moriarty – the old one – loved to torture them.

"But I won…" Two leaned in confidentially. "When the young one comes here…they thought they left me deaf and dumb and blind and lost in my own world. They never knew I tricked them into thinking that."

"You mean Moriarty – the young one – he doesn't know that you're as sane as I am?" she breathes.

Two smiles. "I promise you, if it's the last thing I do, that mistake will be his downfall."

He tells her the same story over and over again, and makes the same promise every time. He likes telling it, and she likes hearing it.

In return she tells him her story. Meredith. Molly. How Moriarty forced her to do his bidding.

"He had my cell phone," she explains. She tells him about how Moriarty had rigged it. Doing this takes several hours because the concept of a cell phone is new to Two. He is interested.

"So you can send messages with it? To people you know?"

"If I had it, yes. To anyone." She smiles indulgently at the enthusiasm on his face.

"What does it feel like?"

It's an odd question and she tries to explain. "It's about the size of your palm. But flat, and smooth, like glass or metal. It's rectangular, and thin, and…cool to the touch."

He holds out his hand, as if he can feel the cell phone under his fingers.

He makes her repeat the story as often as she makes him tell her how he tricked the Moriartys.

When it begins to get dark she bids him goodnight and scurries up the stairs in the hope of avoiding One. Then she shoves the dresser to block the door and huddles in the nest she has made herself. If it is a non-food day, her stomach aches from hunger, and if it is a food day, the rotten fruit makes her stomach ache even more.

Eventually she falls asleep. Her neck aches. Five's screams wake her up. She nods off again. She wakes up in the sunlight.

The day begins again.

* * *

**A/N: **Hopefully you like? Y/Y? I promise that the next two chapters have answers. LOTS of answers. So let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: **The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating: **15

**Genre:** Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships:** Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary: **Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

* * *

**Chapter 5**

It was getting beyond a joke. It was the fifth night this week.

John wouldn't have minded as much if it was loud screaming sex waking him up. People who have loud screaming sex probably know their neighbours can hear them and are fine with the arrangement. But the soft murmurs and puffs of laughter seemed intimate and personal and John didn't like feeling guilty for trying to sleep in his own bedroom.

Being intensely British he would never have usually broached the subject, even if their sexual antics prevented him from ever sleeping again, but it'd been a very difficult few weeks (being kidnapped and nearly blown up can be like that) and when he bumped into Steve from next door by the bins he dived straight in to the conversation.

"Look," he said, "I don't know if you know, but the walls between our bedrooms are thinner than they look and if you are um, going to, y'know… you should just know that it's not quite as private and you think."

Steve's expression, as he would tell a gossip hungry Mrs. Hudson later, was a picture. It was almost as if he'd turned to granite. For a moment John was worried for his safety.

"I don't think so mate," he snapped. "'Cause Rich moved out a month ago to shack-up with my former personal trainer."

* * *

That night John told himself that there was no possible way that anyone could be having sex near enough for him to overhear it. Steve and Rich were getting divorced and the flat on the other side was unoccupied; he'd checked.

But the more he listened the more convinced he was that the noise sounded closer than ever. Almost as if it was coming from the same room.

* * *

It all came to a head the next day, saving John from having to broach the subject of the mysterious sex to Sherlock.

Mrs. Hudson flew into the room in a flurry of tears and accusations.

"I have had enough!" she wailed. "It's beyond a joke! I'll freely admit that my memory isn't what it was, but that's the fourth time today I've gone to walk through a door that doesn't exist anymore! And before you say it's my mind playing tricks on me, I can tell you that there hasn't been a door in that wall since before I was born! And the last straw came when I went into my own kitchen for some cake and there's an urchin looking up at me asking to see 'Mr. Holmes!'"

"I don't think you're supposed to call them urchins-" began John.

"John, he was ten seconds away from bursting into '_I'd Do Anything'_. He was _Victorian_!" Sherlock opened his mouth but Mrs. Hudson was in full rant form. "And then there's that business with your phantom telegram and John hearing those shenanigans going on when next door have split up-"

Sherlock swivelled his eyes towards John. John wished she'd left that part out – he didn't fancy Sherlock demanding details.

"-and before you say 'oh she's on her herbal soothers' again, I've not had any in a month (it's so expensive nowadays.) As the two resident clever-clogs I expect you to sort it out! This place is haunted and I want you to do something about it."

She flounced off - possibly to drain the last dregs of her herbal supply.

* * *

When Moriarty turned up Molly was almost pleased. Admittedly it's a pleasure that takes the form of numbing terror; both at what has been happening in the outside world and what would shortly happen to her, but he was the cleanest thing she'd seen in three months.

"Mollidith," he gave her another crushing kiss, and her mouth was so dry and rotten that she almost welcomed the fresh moisture it offered. "Have you been enjoying yourself with your lovely companions? They haven't been causing trouble have they?"

Molly shook her head and he looked disappointed.

"Mind you they're pretty boring. If it wasn't for them being a gift from my great-grandfather I'd have killed them all off by now. Where's Two?"

She jerked her chin towards the corner and Moriarty grinned. Two was sitting like she had first seen him – eyes glazed, looking like a living corpse. He made no movement to suggest he even knew anyone was in the room with him.

"He's my favourite. There's no trace of the original person in One. And no one can see Five to enjoy his suffering. But with Two, you know he's in there…trapped inside his own head."

He stalked over to Two and crouched down in front of him. "Don't know I'm here, do you old man? Can't see. Can't hear. Can't talk. Mind you…" he leaned in close to the man's hooked nose, "you can still feel pain…am I right?"

It happened so quickly that Molly shrieked in surprise.

Two – old and frail as he looked – lunged forward and grabbed the front of Moriarty's jacket.

Moriarty staggered backwards, but the old man didn't let go and was pulled along. In the end Moriarty, looking deeply unsettled, gave Two an almighty shove backwards.

Something cracked as Two hit the wall, a broken hip maybe, and he panted in silent agony.

"Fucking lunatics," muttered Moriarty as he dusted himself off.

Molly darted forward to do what she could for Two, which was practically nothing in the current situation. She crouched in front of him, muttering soothing words that she knew he really could hear.

Two grabbed her own hands and squeezed them like a lifeline. He gave a guttural groan, like a man trying to yell in pain but couldn't…

"Leave him!" snapped Moriarty.

Molly hesitantly stood, but before she untangled her hands from Two's fingers, she froze in surprise.

Two had slipped a thin, cold rectangle into her hands, and given her a wan smile that was hidden from Moriarty's eyes. He'd stolen her phone from Moriarty.

"Take her," Moriarty ordered.

Two goons (different ones this time) stepped forward to drag her forcibly down the narrow stairs she had originally entered by. She barely had time to stuff the phone into her pocket.

Before she left she strained to look at Two. He looked almost…happy. He had finally enacted his revenge. He'd tricked the Moriartys a second time and he believed she would be able to call for help, and thereby bring about Moriarty's downfall.

_If only_, she thought desperately, _it was as easy as that_.

Downstairs a steel door was. Even with the men's torches she couldn't make out more than the doorway.

She was led down another set of concrete stairs into the basement and, for a moment, she was quite stunned at the sight that met her eyes. The room was cavernous. Electric light flooded the space and computer screens glowed on every work bench. Glass test tubes and distillation machines shone, and silver medical implements sparkled on silver trays.

It all looked so wonderfully…clean.

She was steered forward to the centre of the room, where a dentistry chair awaited her.

Molly's survival instinct, which had been momentarily stunned by her culture shock at the new location, kicked in. She kicked, screamed at, and bit her captors; a woman of 5' 2'' is no match for three large men.

She was bundled into the seat and strapped in so tightly that it hurt her chest to breathe. Even her head was forced still – she could only turn her a fraction to either side, leaving the trays of scalpels and pincers to menace her from the very corner of her eye.

Directly in front of her, taking up all of her vision, was a white wall on which was projected a blue power-point presentation. Moriarty stood next to it, as if waiting for her to quiet down and give him all her attention. He looked like a young executive about to launch into last month's sales figures.

"I've got a lot to explain," he said to her incredulous expression. "This keeps the dunces from falling behind. Fear seems to dull the brain to the finer details of a brilliantly executed plan."

"Why are you telling me? Isn't that, like, villain 101, _Don't Tell the Hero the Plan_?" she rasped.

Moriarty laughed. "D'you _really_ think you're the hero?"

Molly ignored the insult. Instead she tried to sneak her hand into the pocket where she had slipped her cell phone. He couldn't really see her that well, the area they were in was shadowy and the projector light was blaring into his face. Her arms were bound so tightly that her fingers could barely brush the edge of the buttons. She knew that her chances of summoning help were impossible, but it was her only hope. Her fingers ached from stretching.

He gave a fake grin and clicked the first slide. It said, simply;

**Sherlock Holmes**

"Sherlock Holmes was born in 1861…"

* * *

**A/N:** Not long to go now… then all will make sense! Please let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: **The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre:** Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships:** Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

* * *

**Chapter 6**

"_This _is Sherlock Holmes in 1895."

A picture flashed on the screen. It was an image of a stranger who bore no resemblance to the Sherlock Holmes she knew. His eyes were dark and lively, burning with a passion and a… kindness that her Sherlock Holmes didn't have.

_Her_ Sherlock Holmes. How ironic to think of him as that.

But at the same time, something about him was familiar. Something around the nose.

"He lived in 221b Baker Street with a _Dr. John Watson_ and a landlady called Mrs. _Hudson_. He worked, on and off, with a Detective _Lestrade_. And his odious brother was called _Mycroft_. Want to guess the name of his Arch Nemesis?"

He grinned.

"So the question you need to answer, _Molly_, is simple. How can two men live the exact same lives over a hundred years apart?"

Molly had been trying to mash the buttons on the phone without being seen. She stopped and responded in a flat voice.

"Obviously the Sherlock Holmes I… know… isn't really that Sherlock Holmes. Someone has turned him into him." She glared. "But I knew that already."

"But there's so much more you_ don't_ know!" he said cheerfully. He clicked the next slide.

**The Moriartys.**

"My _great, great, great, great_ grandfather started it all. He and Sherlock Holmes were engaged in a battle of wits that lasted their entire lifetime and became their mutual obsession. Sherlock Holmes became legendary in my family. Every child grew up hearing the stories, long after Sherlock Holmes was dead. We all wanted to be like Professor Moriarty.

"Thankfully my ancestor had a great interest in the purity of his descendants. He wanted to make us in his image. By whatever means necessary."

Molly swallowed. "Cloning?"

"Hah! No. He chose a simpler method – fucking his sister. Oh you're shocked, I expect the medical reporter in you is desperate to write an article about me."

"After four generations of incest I'm surprised you're even alive. I'm not surprised that you're insane though."

Moriarty's eyes flickered dangerously and she was reminded of the sudden attack in her bedroom when she had last mocked him.

"My mother needed medical help to make sure I survived in the womb. Well. I say mother. She was my also my aunt. And thankfully technology is such that, next time, it will be even easier. But we'll get onto that later. Right now we should be talking about my great grandfather. He was a brilliant man, a doctor, and he was smart enough to realise the most important fact about medicine."

"Which is?"

"That the Hippocratic oath is for fools."

Molly clenched her teeth, almost unable to believe she was at the mercy of this lunatic. "That's not true."

"Oh yes it is. Concentration Camps did more for medical advancement than had been achieved in a hundred years. The medical profession's greatest dilemma was deciding whether to use the information. Doing harm gets results. My great-grandfather knew this and gathered together like-minded men. Together they cloned the first humans in 1946. They made leaps that the medical world won't discover for hundreds of years. His own, special interest was that of brain surgery. Have you figured out why yet Molls?"

Molly swallowed. "So he could re-create Sherlock Holmes?"

"Exactly!"

A new slide appeared.

**The Clones**

"His plan was to clone him, send the babies away until they were twenty, then bring them back. Using his technology he'd strip away the new identity and re-create the old. And voila! One hundred percent authentic Sherlock Holmes.

"But it wasn't that easy. You see, the technology wasn't reliable and the clones kept dying during the process. My great-grandfather died with his work unfinished. My grandfather – well I say grandfather, technically he was my father too – had more success. As you've seen."

His eyes flicked up at the ceiling.

Molly closed her eyes. Five men, all tortured for their entire lives solely because they shared genes with a Victorian detective.

"Of course he was a petty man. All he cared about was exacting his revenge on his pet clones and making them suffer so he could feel powerful. No finesse at all. I'd have killed them off years ago, but sometimes I'm just a sentimental fool. And then _I _came along."

He said it in a Cheshire Cat tone that implied this was better than the birth of Jesus Christ himself.

"I saw the flaws in their work. Cloning was messy and time-consuming and expensive. I'd have to wait twenty years for my very own Sherlock to mature, by which time he'd be twenty and I'd be collecting my pension. And for what? His mental ability? Geniuses are ten-a-penny. The key is to find the right one and turn him _into_ Sherlock Holmes.

"It took a few years… I needed to find scientists and psychologists who saw things my way (not that it's hard to get a psychologist on board when you tell them they'll never need to worry about ethics again) And then all I had to do was find the right man."

A photo appeared on the screen.

**Dr. Hedley Sholes.**

"Hedley Sholes. American. Worked for the Smithsonian. Wrote a series of award winning books on applying physics and chemistry to daily life in order to achieve financial, sexual, and social success. Married you because he used his own scientific principles to realise that a wife would drastically improve his own financial and social success. Maybe not sexual, but there's a lot of conferences with lonely hotel rooms where he could enjoy that side of things. You loved him. He was planning to drop you the second you were no longer needed. He was _perfect _for what I wanted."

Molly stared at the picture of her handsome husband. She had taken that picture on their honeymoon. He was smiling crookedly, as though he didn't really mean it but was indulging her desire for happy pictures.

"He's dead," she said. "He's really dead."

Moriarty smiled. "I destroyed his old memories and thought processes, then I introduced new ones. First I had to create the thought processes of his original, Victorian self. Then I rebuilt a whole new, _modern_ identity around it. One that could play in the streets of London with me."

Another slide popped up. There were four pictures.

"John Watson. Mycroft Holmes. Gregory Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson."

Two's story… four men and one old woman…

"They were easier. Former soldiers with no family are plentiful and you can fall over daft old women in the street. Lestrade was a widowed traffic warden. Mycroft was an unusually competent banker. I created their new identities and destroyed their old ones. They're just like Sherlock. They just took less work."

"And how…how did you stop them finding out about their… Victorian selves?"

"That was easy! Unless they'd pored through Victorian newspapers they'd never had heard of the Sherlock 1.0 (as I think of him) and to be safe I removed every trace of him from every record. It was actually harder slotting them into the world for the first time. I had to put Mycroft in a high governmental position. I had to get Lestrade into the police. It took a lot of money…but I have my little consultation business for that. And now I have five players."

"What about friends? Family? Doesn't John Watson have a sister?"

"John Watson has an actress _pretending_ to be a sister. She gets paid a lot of money for an odd drunken phone-call and the occasional boozy lunch with him. And Mycroft, clever as he is, has a skilled handler to stop him doing anything I don't want him to."

A photo flashed onto the screen. A pretty young woman.

"You don't know her, of course, but you're going to carry her child. My child."

She looked from the picture to his own smirking face.

"Let me guess, your sister?"

"Oh you aren't as stupid as you look. Correct. Currently she's working under Mycroft Holmes. His crush on her is pathetic really."

Moriarty stepped close and leered down at her. "So…have you put it all together yet?"

Molly stared up at him. He neck was in agony from being forced still, and her whole body ached.

"You're going to do what you did to them to me. You're going to turn me into someone else. Another… player."

"Oh well done! Bang on! Only in name only though. You see, I need a player for _my _team. A queen piece who will share my work and be a surrogate mother for my children. And I figure, what's the point of being Dr. Frankenstein if you can't build the perfect wife for yourself? So… Meredith Harper who became Molly Hooper will now become Irene Adler."

"Who?"

"She was another woman from Sherlock 1.0's life. _The_ woman, I'd say."

He clicked the power-point. It was an image of a woman, a Victorian painting. She was beautiful.

"You'll need some plastic surgery, of course," he reached in a gave her left breast a sharp squeeze. "You'll now actually _need_ a bra for the first time in your life. Facial reconstruction. Hair-dye. We might even make you taller."

"Why?" she said faintly. "Why do all that? Surely there's another woman out there…"

"Because, my sweet, you need to die. And why snuff out your life when it's so much more fun this way? Besides, you aren't entirely friendless. Your father might try and track you down. If he hires the right people he might trace you to me. In which case I'll be able to prove that Dr. Meredith Sholes is alive and well and on the run from the law after murdering her husband. Insurance, you see."

Moriarty moved out of her line of sight. She heard him picking up metal implements behind her.

"And now…Molly…your time is up. Take a long look at Irene Adler. In a couple of hours you'll be living her life."

He drove a needle into her arm and, within four frantic seconds, she was unconscious.

* * *

**A/N: **Nearly at the end now…would love you opinions!


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: **The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre:** Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships: **Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

**A/N:** And this is it…the last official chapter. Just an epilogue to go…

* * *

**Chapter 7**

Irene woke up six hours later.

Her mouth was papery and tasted of fermented fruit. Her skin was grimy and her clothes felt like they wanted to crawl away from her flesh.

She would have clawed them off herself, were in not for the fact she was strapped to a table. Her head was also pounding.

"Must've been some night last night," she rasped to no one in particular.

"That it was."

She jumped, then relaxed. "James?"

Her husband appeared over her and began to gently free her. "How're you feeling _Mrs. Moriarty_?" he smiled.

"I can't remember what happened…" she said.

Her mind felt on fire; like it was working properly for the first time. Random memories rushed back to her, like a suddenly remembered dream. Her childhood in London. Expulsion from private school after private school. Her father the art dealer. The art theft heists she'd joined him on as a teenager. The affairs. The money. The footballers. The parties. The blackmailing. James. The wedding. Their game…

"I thought we agreed I was going to stay an Adler," she said for lack of anything else to say. "For professional purposes."

"That we did," he grinned.

"I know that expression," she said suspiciously. "You look like I'm a new toy for you to play with."

James smirked. "I'm just pleased the operation worked, darling."

She tried to cast her mind back to the last thing she remembered. They'd been talking about her appearance. She'd insisted that she couldn't look like simpering Molly Hooper any more if she was to pull off the plan. They didn't need Molly anymore, and they couldn't risk Sherlock recognising her…

"What've I had done?" she asked.

"Just a nose-job so far. You wanted to get going again as soon as you woke up."

Irene nodded. That explained why it felt like she'd been punched in the face. She screwed her eyes shut as she tried to pull herself back together.

"I think that anaesthetic was too strong," she murmured. "I need to clean up a bit too. Jesus this place is filthy, look at the state of me."

"There's a shower through that door," he offered.

She frowned. "Why're you telling me that? I know this place as well as you do."

He kissed her forehead. "Of course you do, my sweet. You just seem like a new woman today, that's all."

* * *

Once the door was shut behind her Irene stripped as fast as she could, ripping the cloth where it was taking too long to get off.

There was no mirror in the shower room – it was designed for rinsing off blood and brain matter from the surgeons, not for prettying oneself up. Even without it she could see that something was wrong just by looking down at her naked body.

She was filthy. Not just filth from a disgusting laboratory, the sort of filth she associated with tramps and squatters. Blood from her period had dried between the cracks of her legs. Her legs and armpits were hairier than they'd been since she was fourteen and going through a hippy phase – yet she had a memory of shaving them just two days ago. Her nails were torn.

Something was up and she knew her husband far too well to take anything he said at face value. She'd been a javelin thrower at school, and so she trusted him far, far less than she could throw him.

She picked through the disgusting clothes cautiously. They were infested. Ugh.

But wait…

One pocket felt heavy. Inside was a phone. She had no knowledge of how she'd come to own it.

It was on standby and when she turned it back on a message popped up;

This recording has reached its limit. Save recording?

She clicked Yes.

Play recording back?

Yes.

Irene stood, still completely naked, and listened to an hour of her life she had no memory of.

"_-erlock Holmes was born in 1861. This is Sherlock Holmes in 1895…"

* * *

_

Irene stepped out into the laboratory an hour later, clean and wearing only an old lab-coat.

"I was starting to worry about you," said James. He didn't look worried. He was tapping away at a laptop. She hoped he was arranging the Wernstar account they'd been trying to set up, and then remembered that she really didn't give a shit about the Wernstar account. She wasn't really a consulting criminal after all.

"I was disgusting," she shrugged. "And now I need a coffee."

"Make one for me," said James without looking up.

Irene sighed. "If I must."

"That's my girl."

Irene returned two minutes later with a coffee from the espresso machine he'd had installed. She placed the cup by his elbow and he took a gulp.

"Fucking bitter," he winced.

"New mix," she shrugged.

She asked him about the Wernstar account while she was perched on the slab she had woken up on. "Any progress?"

"Nah," he grunted. "Haven't got time. I'm having issues with the players."

The players. It's what they had always called Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Up until an hour ago she had believed herself to have been a part of creating the technology that had rebuilt their minds into their current formats.

"Issues?"

"According to the reports from my sister all of the players are experiencing… hauntings. Sherlock and John have been researching the phenomena and talking to 'experts'. Mycroft is concerned but unwilling to discuss it with her. Lestrade is putting it down to stress."

"Hauntings?" she raised an eyebrow.

"We recreated memories from their 'original' lives to build their modern identities around. It was the only way we could keep the essence of them. Unfortunately their Victorian working model is interfering with their modern existence and it's causing hallucinations. Hah-" he smirked as he read something from the screen "-according to this dear John has been overhearing sexual antics without realising he's overhearing the sounds of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at it!"

"You haven't any proof they were ever at it. It was just your perverse sense of humour wanting to include that part of the Victorian working model. Just like you thought it would be funny to give Mrs. Hudson a murderer for a husband. And I _said _creating Victorian memories alongside modern ones was stupid and bound to lead to trouble."

"The Victorian ones were only meant to be part of the subconscious. I'll kill that psychiatrist who said it wouldn't affect them. In fact, where's my new phone…?"

He reached into his pocket and then, finding it empty, patted himself down.

Irene reached into her own pocket and stroked the missing phone as he grew more irritated and then stood up to look for it.

When he doubled over in pain, she smiled.

"What…the…FUCK?" he panted.

"Never trust a coffee made in a laboratory," she shrugged.

"You!" he groaned again.

"Me! You see, Molly or Meredith or whatever she was called… somehow stole this phone." Irene held up the phone. He lunged towards it, but she hopped out of his reach. "And somehow she recorded your big villain speech. Apparently I'm Frankenstein's creation. I'm designed to be your partner-in-crime. You've never read Frankenstein, I take it?"

"What?" James panted. He had tried to yell for help but she had sent the remaining lab staff away while she'd made the coffee.

"Frankenstein was at war with his creation. He spends the entire book running from it. It hates him and it resents him for creating it. I feel much the same way about you."

"Who gives a fuck about Frankenstein?"

Irene shrugged.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that within thirty seconds you'll be paralysed. Dead in maybe four minutes. And then I'll have access to_ our_ consulting business and I'll have control of the game that _we _set up. I've never played well with others and now that I know that the love I feel for you is fake, then I see no reason to share the game with you _James._"

He dropped to the concrete floor, still glaring up at her. He was still alive.

"This – ungh - " she aimed a kick at his side, "is for Molly – ungh – and Meredith. And this – ungh – is for Hedley Sholes and – ungh – all – ungh – the people – ungh – whose lives – ungh – you've stolen."

She kneeled down to look into his eyes. They were beginning to glaze over. She'd always liked it when his eyes did that – it usually meant he was planning to do something filthy to her. But, of course, those memories were false. The real thing was so much better.

"In my mind I planned their deaths alongside you. But now I'm guilt free because I didn't _exist," _she purred_._ "Irene Adler was reborn today, and I think it will be a lot more fun being an arch nemesis in 2011 than it ever was in 1890."

She stood over him until she was sure that James Moriarty was dead. An hour ago his death would have destroyed her. Now he was just a man who'd killed her real husband, wiped her memories, and tried to trick her into loving him.

The King is dead, she thought. Long live the Queen.

* * *

**A/N:** Not long to go now…


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** The Ghost in the Game

**Author:** EmmyAngua

**Rating:** 15

**Genre: **Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic

**Warnings:** Implied torture. Bad language.

**Ships: **Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.

**Summary:** Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?

**A/N:** Wow – this is the end now. I hope you think it was worth the wait.

* * *

**Epilogue**

It's afternoon when Irene wakes up from her nap. She's in the Maldives. Her white yacht – Bohemia – bobs on topaz blue sea. Irene's lover, Ovid Wernstar – international footballer, is propped up on one arm next to her.

She prods one of his perfect abs. "Stop that."

"Vot?"

"Playing with that phone. We're in the middle of the ocean and all I can hear is you clicking away on that plastic piece of shit. Mobile phones are _annoying_."

"I still can't believe you don't haf one."

"Having a mobile phone implies you _need _one. I don't need anyone or anything."

"Not efun me?"

She presses an amused kiss to his lips. "Not even you."

Irene stands, wraps a saran around her hips, and heads to the controls. "I'm taking us back to shore."

Ovid sits up sharply. The sunlight on his oiled pecs wink at her. "Irene! The paparazzi!"

She shrugs. "I don't care about photographs. I need to get back to England."

This is true. In the last three months she has had extensive plastic surgery. She is now uniformly pretty – and uniform is the word. She looks like every other pretty, airbrushed blonde.

"I do," sulks Ovid. "And I thought the whole point of this trip vos to find yourself? Vy go home now?"

Irene shrugs. A lot has changed since she woke up reborn. Some are practical. She has sold that revolting estate – its prisoners were probably relieved at the simple, merciful end she ensured them – and wiped all traces of the ridiculous consulting business from existence.

James liked explosions and robberies and murders in dank basements. If she's going to become a master criminal, she's going to do it in style –swirling a cocktail in one hand and sleeping on a firm waxed chest at night.

"I didn't need to find myself. There was never any self to find."

This is true too. She has no family – Meredith Harper does, but she has no memories and no connection to those people anymore. She has no friends. She has no memories that are really hers. Even picking up a book she has already read leaves her wondering whether the memories are real or implanted. And the memories that she does have are so…impersonal.

For example, she knows she had a father. She knows what he looks like. She knows she loved him. But when she grasps for some unique remembrance in her mind – what he smelled like, what it felt like to hug him, a shared joke, a road trip together… normal memories that everyone has, there is nothing but bland_ facts_ there.

Do the other players feel the same – or has her knowledge of what she is caused her to question her memories and feelings?

_They_ are her family now. They share a history with her, a common purpose. They were created to play a game and without it they are all nothings.

"Anyway," she adds, "I'm needed in London. I've got some old ghosts to deal with."

Her only purpose in life is to play the game. Besides, yachting is boring.

She turns the boat and heads them back to land. Ovid goes to shower (alone, despite his hopeful suggestion otherwise) and while she waits she pulls out her paper notebook (so much more stylish than technology, and much harder to infiltrate).

She has been jotting down ideas as they come to her. Ways to twist Sherlock's life into such knots that he'll never, ever find out what he is. He was her husband - it's the least she owes him.

She memorises the contents, then drops the book overboard.

Game one is over.

Game two is just beginning.

* * *

_Six months later. _

The woman who walked down Baker Street was truly astonishing. Men stopped to stare at her with the innocence of people who couldn't tell plastic surgery from real beauty. The people that didn't stare at her face stared at her clothes. She was wearing emerald green, and enough mystic jewellery to stock a hippy shop. She looked exactly as she'd designed herself to look – like a druidic fairie.

She knocked on the door to 221b and waited.

"Yes?" it was Mrs. Hudson. "Can I help you?"

"I hope I can help you. I'm a medium," she spoke in a breathy Welsh accent. "One of my clients referred me to Mr. Holmes after he mentioned some unusual events happening in his flat."

Mrs. Hudson's face relaxed.

"Oh! Come up! I'm at my wit's end about it all! What was the name again?"

"Irene," she said, stepping over the threshold. "My name's Irene."

**The End**


End file.
